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EVERYBODY likes to spread things on their toast. Well, not everbody, exactly. There are people who don’t like toast but do like spreads and there are people who do like toast and don’t like spreads. Ah, dry toast. When Squinter was a boy it was exclusively for people in hospital suffering from stomach complaints or recovering from an operation, but that’s the way some people actually prefer it. Just as Squinter’s been told – without ever having witnessed it, mind – that some people eat dry Paris buns.Weird.

Squinter’s first toast spread was butter, of course, although on untoasted bread he’d treat himself to butter and sugar, while others of his age group (at a time when fancy sandwich fillers like ham and cheese were strictly luxuries) preferred to smear HP sauce. Jam and marmalade remain constant favourites when it comes to toast; peanut butter is an occasional tasty treat; he won’t touch Nutella with a bargepole, although he acknowledges its huge popularity, not least among his own brood; similarly, sandwich spreads of all flavours are a no-no, mostly because of their tacky reputation (a colleague, though, insists Marks and Sparks spreads are yum).

But while we can argue all day about what’s nice on toast and what’s not, Squinter’s pretty sure that none of us ever sat with a grumbling tummy and thought, I’d couldn’t half go a hamburger spread on toast. But that’s what somebody’s come up with, as Squinter discovered during a wander around Asda the other night.

The makers recommend spreading the topping on your toast and adding a slice of cheese for a tasty and filling snack (toast and cheese not provided). Personally, Squinter wouldn’t try that stuff if he was a prisoner-of-war and it came in a Red Cross parcel. The fatal alarm bell is sounded by the illustration on the cardboard sleeve. Unsurprisingly perhaps, it’s not a picture of a round of toast with brown spread and a slice of cheese as it’s hard to imagine any image of that which would water the mouth of any human being. Rather, it’s a picture of a very tasty-looking actual hamburger; in a bun, with cheese, and lettuce, and tomato.

There’s also an American flag on there, which might suggest a bit of authentic flavour, the US of A being the birthplace of the burger and all. But in small type underneath it says ‘Produced in the EU’, which not only puts off the food purists, but also leaves a bad taste in the mouths of éirígí and the DUP.